1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a self-inking hand stamp with upper impact inking comprising a stamp housing in which a stamp aggregate is arranged that is capable of moving from an inking position on an ink pad to a stamping position, and an actuating frame with a reversing mechanism associated with the stamp aggregate for this purpose. The actuating frame comprised of a top side, two broad sides opposite each other, as well as two narrow sides opposite each other, is mounted on the upper part of the stamp housing in the form of a cap. The actuating frame comprises two legs resting laterally on the stamp housing for actuating the stamp aggregate. It can be pressed down in relation to the stamp housing against a spring force and has a receiving recess located at its top side for accommodating an information sheet, with a transparent cover being detachably mounted on the receiving recess.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such self-inking hand stamps offer the advantage of a compact and handy construction as compared to stamps having an upwardly projecting handle mounted on the top side of the actuating frame—compare, for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,432,281 A or AT 1271 U, with U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,696 A.
It is also common practice in such self-inking hand stamps with a cap-like actuating frame to accommodate an information sheet on the top side of the cap in a sight window that displays the respective stamp imprint to be produced, in order to inform the user about the respective stamp imprint when using a multitude of stamps. Provision is usually made for a transparent cover with a more or less plane surface, which is snapped on to the actuating frame above the recess for receiving the information sheet. However, users frequently require additional information, such as company information, information relating to various departments within a company, advertising data and similar information. For this purpose, actuating frames in different colors conforming to different departments in a company, for example such as hand stamps with plastic actuating frames dyed in black, blue and red, have been provided. In addition, it has become customary to glue labels to the broad sides of the upper components of the actuating frame such as, for example, labels containing the information “department X”. On the other hand, it has been proposed also to provide receiving recesses for accommodating labels on the two broad sides of the actuating frame instead of on the top side in order to accommodate information labels in such recesses—compare AT 380 836 B. However, these various proposals all have been found unsatisfactory in practice but they were accepted because only these designs were viewed as useful in self-inking hand stamps in which the stamp housing resiliently supports the cap-shaped actuating frame, in spite of the fact that it has been known from DE 1 136 720 C to place a label on the head of the handle of a hand stamp that extended from the top side to the narrow sides and possibly also up to the broad sides of the head of the grip, with a cap attached to the top that enclosed the head of the handle on all sides. However, this hand stamp had no self-inking system, so that no components had to be accommodated in the interior of the handle. Furthermore, no provision was made for receiving recesses on the head of the handle for accommodating the labels, which were simply inserted under the generally square cap. Such a cap poses only few problems with a hand stamp without a self-inking system in spite of the instability it causes when stamp imprints are produced because no moving components are present; however, in connection with self-inking stamps such a cap may lead to an inadequate stamp imprint that even may be smudgy under certain circumstances.